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Monday, 31 October 2011

Virtual Team Success Factors

Author: Exforsys Inc. Published on: 28th Apr 2009

A Virtual Team that emphasizes the following factors can successfully complete any project. Due to the falling costs of virtual team technology and the growing power of networks, more virtual teams are being formed all the time, and will continue to be formed in the foreseeable future.

Even though all virtual teams may be able to access the same technology, this does not mean that they will have the same results when it comes to the successful completion of their projects. Because many organizations don't understand the advantages and disadvantages of virtual team networking, they will be unable to successfully take part in this emerging technological trend.

When it comes to virtual teams, the most important thing to keep in mind is that just having access to computers and communication technologies is not enough for the team to successfully complete projects. While the proper equipment is necessary, there are many other factors that go far beyond the mere construct of technology.

Many virtual team managers have assumptions about virtual groups that may not be quite accurate. For example, most people believe that the costs of travel fall when virtual groups are implemented. However, this is only true if the team is small. In truth, as the team becomes larger and more successful, travel costs may actually increase.

Some of the factors that virtual team members must pay attention to if they wish to succeed are organizational culture, cohesion, and coordination. What is most interesting is that these three factors are not restrained or related to technology. These factors are just as relevant in traditional teams as they are in virtual ones.

If a group is not cohesive, this team will not succeed. The most fundamental step in group cohesion is group communication. All members of the team should be able to speak their minds freely without fear of retribution or isolation on the part of the other members. The leader should communicate with all members evenly, and the issue of "playing favorites" should never be allowed.

Coordination and Group Cohesion

Many virtual managers make the mistake of thinking that just having accessed to advanced communication technologies is enough for them to successfully build a virtual team. This couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, this is just the "starting point" for a successful virtual team. When you build a virtual team, always keep in mind that the technology should be the beginning, not the end.

The end of the process should always be the human factor. When I say the "human factor," I'm referring to good old fashioned human psychology. You see, why technology may change, humans rarely do. If you can understand this, then you have the foundation which can allow your virtual team to thrive while others fail.

It may be argued that a virtual team is only as good as its leader. Regardless of how advanced the tools of a virtual team may be, if the leader is incompetent, the team will fail before the project even starts. Many of the principles that are used in traditional leadership roles are equally effective for virtual teams, particularly when it comes to building and maintaining group cohesion.

An effective leader will make sure he communicates with their team members effectively. While the opinions of the members may be considered, in the end, it is always the leader who should have the final say. The team must also be capable of coordinating tasks in a highly efficient manner.

Organizational Culture and Coordination

Each organization has a culture, a form of behavior that is shared among all members of the group. Of all the factors mentioned so far in this article, organization culture plays a critical role in the success of the virtual team.

All members of the team must speak the same language, meaning that methods of behavior should be established early on. Once again, it is the leader of the team who must be responsible for establishing these methods of behavior. All members of the team must behave in the same manner in order for group cohesion to be maintained.

Abstract

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have high potential for the growth of SMEs. Due to the fast-growing complexity of new products coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs’ virtual R&D teams. Online questionnaires were emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. In order to avoid biases which may result from pre-suggested answers, a series of open-ended questions were retrieved from the experts. This study was focused on analyzing an open-ended question, whereby four main themes were extracted from the experts’ recommendations regarding the effectiveness of virtual teams for the growth and performance of SMEs. The findings of this study would be useful to product design managers of SMEs in order to realize the key advantages and significance of virtual R&D teams during the new product development (NPD) process. This in turn, leads to increased effectiveness in new product development's procedure.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Managing Communication in New Product Development Process: Virtual R&D Teams and Information Technology

Item Type

Conference Paper

Author

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Author

Shamsuddin Ahmed

Author

Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid

Author

Zahari Taha

Place

University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Publisher

University of Malaya Press

Pages

495-502

Date

201112-14 July

Abstract

Literature proves the importance of the role of information technology in increasing the effectiveness of virtual R&D teams’ communication for new product development. However, the factors that make information technology construct in a virtual R&D team are still ambiguous. Managers of virtual R&D teams for new product development do not know “which type of technology should be used”. To address the gap and answer the question, the paper presents a set of factors that make a construct that contribute to effective communication strategy for virtual R&D teams. The proposed construct has been modified based on the findings of a field survey. This work empirically examines the relationship between information technology construct and its factors by employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). A measurement model is built based on the 19 preliminary chosen factors that have been extracted from literature review. The result shows that 10 factors can make a technology construct. These 10 factors can be grouped into two different constructs, namely Web-based communication and Web-based data sharing. The study findings can help new product developers to concentrate on the main factors for leading effective communications among virtual R&D team members. In addition, this work provides a guideline for software developers to create appropriate tools for virtual R&D teams.

United Kingdom - Malaysia - Ireland Engineering Science Conference 2011 (UMIES 2011) is open to Malaysian postgraduate engineering students worldwide as well as foreign postgraduate students who are currently studying in Malaysia. UMIES 2011,which runs on 12th & 13th of July in University Malaya, aims to provide an excellent platform to Malaysian students to share and exchange research findings and ideas. The objectives of the conference are as follows:

To increase the involvement of Malaysian students in an internationally recognized conference.

To promote the value of knowledge sharing and networking among Malaysians as well as their international counterparts.

To strengthen the bond among the academic institutions of three countries in sharing new ideas and strengthen future research activities.

The conference will be divided into7 themes in engineering sciences and related fields:

In the varying and uncertain environmental desires of customers, companies can not produce their current products forever. They apply different strategies to keep themselves competitive and effective in this altering environment. In this regard one of the key strategies is development of new products. New product development is one of the risky activities and is vital for survival and success of organizations. This paper introduces a model for evaluating and prioritizing new products development strategies. First, effective criteria and alternatives are identified. Then, the fuzzy multi criteria decision making method is applied to weight different measures and alternatives. In this paper, different new methods are introduced for calculation of fuzzy utilities and weights of criteria and prioritizing alternatives. For validation of the proposed model, it is applied for evaluation and prioritizing development strategies of new products in an automobile parts manufacturer. Compared to hierarchical process, the results of the proposed model were different. Also, identification and classification of effective factors for success of a new product development strategy is application of the proposed model.

This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literatures, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are proposed.

Tools

"... Abstract—Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing and improve organizational performance. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions and make a new opportunity to develop the business. In this paper, ..."

Abstract—Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing and improve organizational performance. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions and make a new opportunity to develop the business. In this paper, we present summary results of an online survey. The online questionnaire was emailed by using a simple random sampling method to 356 Malaysian manufacturing small and medium –sized Enterprises (SMEs). The findings of this study show that SMEs in Malaysia are gaining to use virtual teams, and it can be concluded that virtual teams provide a new platform for developing the business in SMEs. Based on the study, we suggest avenues for future research that are important to advancing our understanding of virtual team effects on business growth. Keywords—Collaboration, virtual teams, SMEs, Entrepreneurship, Business development, Survey

"... Abstract—In this paper, we present our more than two years research experiences on virtual R&D teams in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and draws conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of virtual teams required to support education-industry collaboration. We report the rele ..."

Tools

"... Abstract—Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing and improve organizational performance. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions and make a new opportunity to develop the business. In this paper, ..."

Abstract—Virtual teams give many advantages to organizations, including increased knowledge sharing and improve organizational performance. Virtual teams have altered the expectations and boundaries of knowledge worker’s interactions and make a new opportunity to develop the business. In this paper, we present summary results of an online survey. The online questionnaire was emailed by using a simple random sampling method to 356 Malaysian manufacturing small and medium –sized Enterprises (SMEs). The findings of this study show that SMEs in Malaysia are gaining to use virtual teams, and it can be concluded that virtual teams provide a new platform for developing the business in SMEs. Based on the study, we suggest avenues for future research that are important to advancing our understanding of virtual team effects on business growth. Keywords—Collaboration, virtual teams, SMEs, Entrepreneurship, Business development, Survey

"... Abstract—In this paper, we present our more than two years research experiences on virtual R&D teams in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and draws conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of virtual teams required to support education-industry collaboration. We report the rele ..."

This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literatures, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are proposed.

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About Me

Nader Ale Ebrahim has
a Technology Management PhD degree from the Department of Engineering
Design and Manufacture, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya
(UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds a Master of Science in the
mechanical engineering from University of Tehran, Iran.